What determines the development of rural financial markets? Starting from a simple theoretical framework, we derive the factors shaping the market entry of rural microfinance institutions across time and space. We provide empirical evidence for these determinants using the expansion of credit...

What determines the development of rural financial markets? Starting from a simple theoretical framework, we derive the factors shaping the market entry of rural microfinance institutions across time and space. We provide empirical evidence for these determinants using the expansion of credit...

Gerschenkron (1962) argued that public institutions such as the State Bank of the Russian Empire spurred the country's industrialization. We test this assertion by exploiting plant-level variation in access to State Bank branches using a unique geocoded factory data set. Employing an...

Can state-owned banks spur development? Gerschenkron (1962) identified the State Bank of the Rus- sian Empire as the main institutional driver of the country's catch-up industrialization. In this paper, we test this assertion by evaluating the outcome of a policy experiment (1892-1903) under the...